Workforce housing may spur change in zoning

Friday

Nov 30, 2012 at 2:00 AM

NORTH HAMPTON — While the developer of a plan to create a 53-unit workforce housing subdivision on Post Road has not yet formally presented it to the Planning Board, work is under way to tweak the zoning ordinance under which a project such as this could go forward.

Shir Haberman

NORTH HAMPTON — While the developer of a plan to create a 53-unit workforce housing subdivision on Post Road has not yet formally presented it to the Planning Board, work is under way to tweak the zoning ordinance under which a project such as this could go forward.

Developer Joseph Falzone first proposed the development at 160-168 Post Road in May. Two pre-application hearings were held at which Falzone's attorney, Malcolm McNeill, explained the project to the Planning Board.

The last public update came in July. At that time, it was announced that Falzone had completed the purchase of the 55-acre site, known as the Governor Dale property, at a cost of $1.8 million under the name of Post Road Field of Dreams LLC, which McNeill said would be the development name for the North Hampton project. Under the town's Inclusionary Housing Ordinance passed in 2009, Falzone could construct 25 "affordable" homes, along with 28 so-called "market rate" homes on that property.

One of the issues that arose during those hearings involved finding a way to keep the affordable homes in that development affordable in perpetuity. At the first pre-application hearing in May, Falzone indicated that his common practice when creating workforce housing in communities was to guarantee affordability for the first 30 years, after which the homes could be sold at the market rate.

It was an answer that concerned the Select Board's representative to the Planning Board, Phil Wilson. Wilson was the primary architect of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that set the standard for allowing affordable housing developments in town. "What we were trying to say (in the ordinance) is that, if the developer is committed to affordable housing, it should be affordable forever, not 30 years so that someone can flip it and make a profit," Wilson said.

However, the Planning Board was subsequently advised by Lisa Henderson of the Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast that there could be legal barriers to fulfilling the town's goal as stated by Wilson.

"The 30-year requirement is very common," Henderson told the board in June. "In fact, we've been told there may be legal issues in trying to keep it affordable forever."

The state law that prohibits communities from rejecting workforce housing projects without cause uses the term "fair share" as a way of determining whether a town has sufficient affordable housing to preclude the development of more of that type of housing. The town's ordinance did not define the situation in which permission for an affordable housing development could be granted.

However, at a Planning Board public hearing scheduled for Dec. 4, residents will have the opportunity to voice their opinions on a proposed amendment to the ordinance that would create a "trigger" that would allow developers to bring an affordable housing project before town land-use boards. That trigger would be the determination that the town has not fulfilled its "fair share" obligations under state law.

"In order to apply for an approval of a development under the provisions of (the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance), the applicant must provide documentation that the town of North Hampton is not meeting its fair share of workforce housing, as determined by the most current data provided in of the RPC's (Rockingham Planning Commission's) 'Regional Housing Needs Assessment' and the RPC's 'Regional Fair Share Analysis,'" the proposed change reads.

The latest RPC Regional Housing Needs Assessment, done in October 2008, indicates that North Hampton will need 927 affordable units by 2015 in order to comply with the "fair share" provision of state law. Falzone, or any other developer of affordable housing, would have to prove that there are currently fewer than that number of units in order to trigger the provisions of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance.

Falzone's group, Harbor Street Limited Partnership, originally indicated its development plan would be formalized and submitted for formal review in August. However, that has not happened and no timeline for the submission has been announced.

"The developer is reviewing his options," McNeill said last month. Asked if those options include an initially stated but rejected plan to create a conventional 19-lot subdivision on the site, McNeill would not say.

"I think I've said all I'm going to," he said.

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